Essential Diagnostic Tests—Simple, Practical, and Cheap

Stuart Walton, BVSc (Hons), BSCAGr (Hons), MANZCVS (SAIM)

Dr. Walton is a clinical assistant professor in Small Animal Internal Medicine at University of Florida. He is a clinician of 20 plus years, receiving his veterinary degree at the University of Queensland. He has completed two internal medicine residencies at Veterinary Specialist Services (Australia) and Louisiana State University. Dr. Walton currently resides in Gainesville, Florida where he trains students, interns, and residents promoting common-sense veterinary medicine. He has a broad range of interests including infectious and inflammatory diseases, immune mediated disease, respiratory, urinary, gastrointestinal, and hepatic disease as well as extracorporeal blood purification techniques. He is the Co-Editor of Clinical Medicine of the Dog and Cat and has authored multiple articles and book chapters.

Overview:

Clinician experience is everything and over time clinicians develop “go to” diagnostic tests to rule in or rule out disease or definitively diagnose disease in a simple and affordable way. In this lecture I will speak about 10 essential tests that may be underused or overlooked in veterinary practice, and I will speak about newly available diagnostics: their pros and their cons.

Learning Objectives:

To review the value of some older diagnostic tests
To reeducate clinicians about the simplicity of these essential diagnostic tests and how much information they provide
To review when these tests are appropriate to use and how to implement these
To assess the pros and cons of each simple essential diagnostic test

This course is RACE-approved for 1.0 continuing education credits hours in jurisdictions that accept RACE-approval.